Hillerman, Tony - [Leaphorn & Chee 05] Read Online Free PDF Page B

moonscape of pits and pockmarks. Only his forehead, revealed by a central baldness, was smooth—a placid lake of pink skin surrounded by a mass of graying curls.
    Jim Chee had first met West when Chee was brand new in the district—the day they'd recovered John Doe's body. And the day after they'd brought the body in, the dispatcher had relayed a message to drop in at the Burnt Water store because West had something to tell him. The something hadn't been much—a little information which suggested the location one of the area's bootleggers might be using to deliver to his customers. But it was that day that Chee had seen, actually seen, Joseph Musket. It isn't often that a cop gets to see the burglar the day before the burglary.
    Chee had parked in front, come in, seen West in his office in conversation with a young man wearing a red shirt. West had shouted something like "Be with you in a minute," and in a minute the young man had walked out of West's office and past Chee and out the front door. West stood at the office door, glaring after him.
    "That son of a bitch," West had said. "I fired him."
    "He didn't look like he cared much," Chee had said.
    "I guess he didn't," West said. "I give him a job so he can qualify for parole and the bastard shows up for work whenever it damn well pleases him. And that ain't often. And I think he was stealing from me."
    "Want to file a complaint?"
    "Let it go," West said. "He used to be a friend of my son's. My boy wasn't ever good at picking friends."
    And the very next morning, there'd been another call. Somebody had unlocked the storage room where West kept jewelry pawned by his customers, and walked out with about forty of the best pieces. Only West and Joseph Musket had access to the key. Since then Chee had learned a little about West. He'd operated the Burnt Water store for twenty years. He'd come from Phoenix, or Los Angeles, depending on your source, and he'd once been married to a Hopi woman, but no longer was. He'd had a son, maybe two, by a previous marriage, and had established a fairly good reputation, as reputations go among trading post operators. He was not on Captain Largo's list of known bootleggers, had never been nailed fencing stolen property, paid relatively fair prices for the jewelry he took in pawn and charged relatively fair interest rates, and seemed to get along well with both Navajo and Hopi customers. The Hopis, Chee had been told, considered him a
powaqa
—a "two-heart"—one of those persons in whom dwelled the soul of an animal as well as the soul of a human. This was the sophisticated Hopis' version of a witch. Chee had asked two Hopis he'd met about this rumor. One said it was nonsense—that only descendants of the Fog Clan could be two-hearts and that the Fog Clan was almost extinct among the Hopi villages. The other, an elderly woman, thought West might be a two-heart, but not much of one. Now West had collected his money from the Navajo girl and given her the money order.
    He loomed down the counter toward Chee, teeth showing white through the beard in a huge grin.
    "Officer Chee," he said, offering his hand. It engulfed Chee's hand, but the handshake, like the voice, was surprisingly gentle. "You're just a little bit late. I expected you five minutes ago." The grin had been converted to sternness.
    Chee had seen West's playfulness before. He wasn't fooled. But he played along.
    "How'd you know when I was coming?"
    "Mind power," West said. "And because you Navajos won't believe in powers like that, I planted a thought in your mind so I could prove it to you." West stared down at Chee, his eyes fierce. "You are thinking of a card."
    "Nope," Chee said.
    "Yes you are," West insisted. "It's subconscious. You don't even know it yourself, but I planted the thought. Now quit wasting our time and tell me the card."
    Chee found himself thinking of cards. A deck of cards spilled across a table. A bunch of spades. No particular card.
    "Come on," West said.